Gabriel Petrov

Gabriel Petrov was Metropolitan of Novgorod and Saint Petersburg, a theologian and preacher, who reposed in peace on 26 January (7 February) 1801 at Novgorod. He has not been canonized by synodal decision; he is venerated by the faithful.

He was born on 18 (29) May 1730 in Moscow, into a family of church servants, and was the younger brother of Archbishop Varlaam of Tobolsk. He studied at the Slavic-⁠Greek-⁠Latin Academy in Moscow, worked on correcting the Slavonic Bible and was a teacher of rhetoric. He was tonsured a monk in 1758, became rector of the seminary at the Trinity Lavra and of the Moscow Academy, and in 1763 bishop of Tver. From 1770 he was archbishop of Saint Petersburg, from 1775 also of Novgorod, and from 1783 metropolitan. He was a member of the Holy Synod and, from 1775 to 1800, its first member.

He raised the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, founded in 1788 a great seminary which in 1797 became the Alexander Nevsky Academy, and preserved many monuments of the ancient writing of Novgorod. He wrote commentaries on the catholic epistles, sermons and a book on the services of the Church. He was generous and temperate. In 1796 Emperor Paul I gave him the Order of Saint Andrew. On 31 December 1800 he retired and lived at the bishop's house in Novgorod, where he reposed. He was buried in the Cathedral of Saint Sophia.